The Institutionalists’ Reaction to Chamberlin’s 'Theory of Monopolistic Competition'

Edwin Chamberlin's The Theory of Monopolistic competition is often described as containing omportant traces of institutionalist influence. This is also confimred by Chamberlin himself who, repeadetly, referred to the work of Veblen, and John Maurice Clark among his inspirational sources. The aim of this paper is to analyse the institutionalist rection to the publication of the Theory of Monopolistic Competition. What will be argued is that the institutionalist response to Chamberlin was a mixed one, and involved some substantial criticisms of his analysis of market structures both on methodological and theoretical grounds. The paper is organized as follows. The first section presents a sketch of the main theoretical implications contained in The Theory of Monopolistic Competition. The second section analyses the general aspects of the institutionalist reaction to Chamberlin. The third and fourth sections deal with the more theoretical aspects of the institutionalist criticism of Chamberlin. The final section presents a conclusion

John R. Commons, Wesley N. Hohfeld and the Origins of Transactional Economics

The aim of this paper is to provide an assessment of John R. Commons’ adoption of Wesley N. Hohfeld’s framework of jural opposites and correlatives in order to construct his transactional approach to the study of institutions. Hohfeld’s influence on Commons, it is argued, was both positive and negative. On the one hand, Commons, followed Hohfeld and recognized that such concepts as property and inheritance actually represent an aggregation of numerous types of legal relations. Hohfeld’s schema provided a powerful rhetorical and analytical tool whereby these highly abstracts conceptions could be reduced to a limited number of primary elements. Moreover, Hohfeld’s schema appeared to be consistent with Commons’ general methodological and psychological commitments. On the other hand, Commons’ forging of “transaction” as the elementary unit of economic analysis can be seen as an attempt to go beyond Hohfeld. Commons was in fact unsatisfied with Hohfeld’s bi-lateral treatment of jural relations and with his neglect of the role played by state officials in enforcing transactions and, in so doing, in promoting specific individual interests as collective public policies

Correlations of Power-law Spectral and QPO Features In Black Hole Candidate Sources

Recent studies have shown that strong correlations are observed between low frequency QPO`s and the spectral power law index for a number of black hole candidate sources (BHC's), when these sources exhibit quasi-steady hard x-ray emission states. The dominant long standing interpretation of QPO's is that they are produced in and are the signature of the thermal accretion disk. Paradoxically, strong QPO`s are present even in the cases where the thermal component is negligible. We present a model which identifies the origin of the QPO's and relates them directly to the properties of a compact coronal region which is bounded by the adjustment from Keplerian to sub-Keplerian inflow into the BH and which is primarily responsible for the observed power law spectrum. The model also predicts the relationship between high and low frequency QPO's and shows how BH's can be unique identified from observations of the soft states of NS's and BHC's.Comment: 2 pages, to be published in Proc. of International Conference on Stellar Mass, Intermediate Mass and Super Massive Black Holes, Oct. 28-31, 2003, Kyoto, Japa

Labor Supply Elasticities: Can Micro Be Misleading for Macro?

In this paper we compare “micro” and “macro” labor supply elasticities in a MaCurdy-type equation. Using PSID data, we obtain the micro elasticity from standard panel techniques, and the macro elasticity from the time series generated by aggregating individuals every year. This procedure relies on the exact aggregation of first-order conditions in a life-cycle model with home production. We find an individual elasticity of about 0.1, a low value in line with mainstream microeconometric studies, and an aggregate elasticity of about 1, a much larger value often assumed in calibration studies. This discrepancy is not due to aggregation bias: it is due to the fact that individual and total hours are different variables, with the extensive margin that empirically dominates. A broader implication of our result is that micro evidence is not always appropriate for calibrating an aggregate model economyelasticity of labor supply, aggregation, calibration

Jacob Viner’s Reminiscences from the New Deal (February 11, 1953)

This paper presents and reproduces an unpublished oral history interview given by Jacob Viner in 1953. The interview released by Viner for the Columbia Oral History Project gives us a valuable opportunity to throw light on his advisory activity during the New Deal Era. In our introduction we attempt to make a critical appraisal of Viner's reminiscences and to state the contribution they can provide to our general knowledge of the period. In addition, we also attempt to find out some biographical and interpretative elements useful to understand Viner’s own vision and his contribution to important economic policy processes during the New Deal.

Dynamic Hardness Tester and Cure Meter

The Shore hardness tester is used extensively throughout industry to determine the static modulus of materials. The new apparatus described here extends the capability of an indentor-type tester into the dynamic regime, and provides a measurement of the dynamic shear or Young's modulus and loss factor as a function of frequency. The instrument, model and data of typical rubber samples are given and compared to other dynamic measurements

Beyond Legal Relations Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld’s Influence on American Institutionalism

This paper documents Hohfeld’s influence on interwar American institutionalism. We will mainly focus on three leading figures of the movement: John Rogers Commons, Robert Lee Hale, and John Maurice Clark. They regarded Hohfeld’s contribution on jural relations as a preliminary step toward the understanding of the adversarial nature of legal rights. Albeit with substantial differences in style, method and emphasis, Hohfeld’s schema provided a powerful analytical and rhetorical tool for their analysis.

A Scholar in Action in Interwar America. John H. Williams’ contributions to trade theory and international monetary reform

In this paper we analyse the scientific contributions of Harvard economist John H. Williams as international trade theorist and monetary reformer, together with his activities as a Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In the first two Sections we present a succinct overview of Williams’ main contributions to international trade theory and to the interwar debate on the reform of the international monetary system. Particular attention will be devoted to his early academic writings which contained different critical arguments against the two main tenets of classical international economics: the Ricardian theory of comparative advantages and the gold standard. These criticisms formed the theoretical rationale and the analytical background of Williams’ key currency approach to the reform of the international monetary system. The key currency plan was first formulated when Williams advised Roosevelt and Morghenthau to sign a Tripartite agreement with Britain and France, and was later refined during the negotiations which concluded with the approval of the Bretton Woods agreements. In this respect, Section 4 is devoted to the analysis of the contents of Williams’ proposal and to the reconstruction of his main criticisms of the two official plans presented by John Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White. Section 5 is devoted to examining Keynes’ and White’s reactions and to elucidating what aspects of Williams’ ideas managed to influence the shaping of the Bretton Woods Agreements. Finally, Section 6 presents some general conclusions. Sections 4 and 5 have greatly benefited from the use of archival sources which have been quoted at length, mostly in the footnotesJohn H. Williams; John Maynard Keynes; Harry D. White; Bretton Woods Agreements; Key currency; gold standard; economists in Government

Space storable thrustor investigation Final report

Design and performance of space storable liquid FLOX methane thrustor of refractory composite material